MOD 023: Win More Customers with Strategic Messaging

If you are able to communicate with your customers, your customers will communicate back by showing up to your races.

Merchants of Dirt Episode #23

If you are able to communicate with your customers, your customers will communicate back by showing up to your races.

In This Episode

00:01 – Strategic Approach or Shotgun Approach?

01:40 – Developing a Strategic Approach to Communications

14:10 – Learn How to Change a Life< with Reckoneer.com/li>

15:23 – Build Your Own Communications Strategy

48:25 – What Comes Next

49:35 – Coming Up Next

51:43 – Call to Action

Key Take Away #1: Strategic Approach or Shotgun Approach?

The Shotgun Approach: Defines an inconsistent method of messaging where you use every form of communications — all at once — hoping at least one of your messages will generate some interest.

The Strategy Approach: Defines which of those customers you are trying to reach, when do you need to reach them, and with what consistent message in a systematic and measurable way.

Key Take Away #2: Developing a Strategic Approach to Communications

Why does the shotgun approach not work?

The answer is consistency.

Shotgun messaging is inconsistent.

It hits a lot of other people who are not your customers, AND it requires your target customer to see your message and react right then.

Communications require consistency to work.

Communications also require precision targeting.

What way works best for telling the world your race exist?

You’re not going to know until you first become consistent in how you communicate with your customers.

This requires that you put away the shotgun and start building tools to help you deliver messages in a systematic and measurable way.

This is why your first tool is the Communications Strategy.

A communications strategy (also referred to as a communications plan) is a document that expresses the goals and methods of your race promotion company’s outreach activities.

Its power comes from its capability to include what your company wishes to share with your customers in a consistent way.

It defines which of those customers you are trying to reach, and when do you need to reach them, with that consistent message.

Key Take Away #3: Build Your Own Communications Strategy

#1 – Know your Purpose: This is a statement that declares what you hope to achieve with it.

#2 – Know your Place: Outline what your race promotion company does.

#3 – Knowing Your Competition: Identify who your competitors are and know which ones have a greater impact on you over another.

#4 – Know your Objectives: Think about what you want your company to look like three years from now and create approximately 3-5 realistic objectives that you can measure.

#5 – Knowing Your Stakeholders: Understand who your customer is (internal and external) by creating a stakeholder map that shows you which of your customers are the most important and why.

#6 – Knowing what to say: Once you know who your customers are, and who you most want to communicate to, you need to create relevant messages for each customer group, starting with those who are the highest priority.

#7 – Knowing how to say it: Decide on which communication channels (or methods) to use for each customer’s message and how many times you will communicate before they need to take action.

#8 – Know your Dates: Plan out when you will need to be communicating with your customers by setting up a table where you establish who receives what message, when they receive it, and who in your organization will send it.

#9 – Know your Success: Determine how each message that goes out will be measured to know how well you have been communicating and how effective those communications have been.

#10 – Know your Strategy: Now use your communications strategy as a tool to reach out and attract racers to your event. This is not something that is set in stone and each message is a tiny experiment all to itself.

Key Take Away #4

Effective communication is a cornerstone of a successful race promotion business. If you are able to communicate with your customers, your customers will communicate back by hopefully showing up to your races.

Next, you need to find out what channels work best with which customer groups. When you have a clear understanding of what that is, you can start experimenting with your message content and deciding what information produces the best results.

And now you know.

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